How to Use Trim and Crown Moulding to Your Advantage

It’s easy to take trim for granted. Even though these features naturally stand out, our eyes often get used to their presence until they become another part of the background. However, trim is more important than many of us realize, and not just in terms of aesthetics, either. Indeed, there are just as many practical uses for trim as there are visual benefits -- it’s all a matter of how you incorporate these features inside your home. If you’re willing to take a closer look, you’ll find hidden advantages of your baseboards, crown moulding, window trim, and more. Here’s how you can better use trim and crown moulding to your advantage.

Ways to Successfully Use Trim and Crown Moulding

Accent any Room

Finding ways to enhance a room’s visual appeal is sometimes easier said than done. That said, sometimes the little changes make the biggest difference. If you want to make your living room pop, for instance, you could do worse than to incorporate some accents. There’s no shortage of ways to accent a room -- you can invest in new furniture with a specific color scheme that juxtaposes your walls, hang artwork with contrasting colors and textures, install other decorative features, perform a full interior painting project, etc. As you consider these potential sources of interior contrast, don’t overlook what you can do with your trim and crown moulding. These thin, decorative features are the perfect candidates for accenting a given space. Simply painting your trim a certain way can transform your room’s atmosphere (read our blog on how to select interior paint colors) -- so can replacing outdated trim with more decorative or modern versions. Whatever the case, trim can enhance a room’s look in multiple ways.

Visually Transition Ceilings and Walls

Walls and ceilings are defined by their location inside a room, but if there’s no crown molding covering the seams between these features, a room can feel incomplete and boxed in -- this is especially true if there’s no difference between ceiling paint and wall paint in terms of color. So, in addition to providing a room with nice visual flair, crown moulding simultaneously separates walls from ceilings while creating a smoother transition between them. In other words, crown moulding reduces the rigid, jarring division between walls and ceilings, offering a beautiful buffer that completes and better defines an interior.

Conceal Seams and Other Imperfections

The decorative nature of trim has many practical uses as well. Perhaps the most notable of these advantages is the ability of trim to cover up seams, gaps, cracks, and other imperfections found on or between surfaces (such as paint cracking between wall and ceiling). These various lines aren’t just eyesores -- they can also allow moisture, pests, and other small materials to enter your abode. Maintaining your home’s caulking is an important measure for preventing these breaches, but trim helps further seal the deal. With secure trim in place around your windows, door frames, walls and ceilings, etc., these external threats have a much harder time getting in. Meanwhile, in terms of aesthetics, you can enjoy the seamless look that quality trim offers inside your home.

Emphasize and Embellish Key Features

Trim isn’t merely meant for walls and windows, of course. Crown moulding in particular can instantly elevate features like fireplaces and cabinets as well. Indeed, if you’re looking for ways to bring out the best of certain components inside your rooms, crown moulding offers a stunning solution. From simple to ornate and everything in between, crown moulding comes in a variety of styles and specific design options so you can be as subtle or flashy as you like. No matter how you decide to implement this type of trim, it will emphasize whatever feature it’s resting upon.

Boost Your Home’s Appeal and Value

Whether or not you’re considering selling your home in the near future, it’s important to keep your property value as high as possible. Trim and crown moulding help in this regard, too. In a perpetually competitive real estate market, every detail and special touch counts, potentially making or breaking a sale. At the very least, maintaining quality trim inside your home will increase people’s interest in your home (and therefore its value, too). In some cases, crown moulding installation can yield a positive return on investment (ROI) when the time comes to sell. Of course, the precise return (or lack thereof) will depend on factors such as whether you tackle the project on your own or hire professionals, the quality of materials used, etc. Specifics aside, your home’s trim and crown moulding can contribute to a more valuable and sought-after property.

Protect Surfaces from Scuffs and Scratches

Certain types of trim are specially designed to protect your walls and other surfaces. Baseboards, for instance, provide a buffer that keeps shoes from scuffing up or scraping against the lower portions of a given wall, reducing the amount of home interior painting touch-ups you must tackle. Chair rails, as their name suggests, are placed horizontally somewhere near the middle of a wall to stop the backs of chairs and other pieces of furniture from hitting the wall. Best of all, these protective types of trim double as decorative features, providing contrast, intricate designs, and in the case of chair rails, segmenting your walls in unique and visually stunning ways.

Get Creative and Practical with Trim

Last but not least, you can take advantage of trim by transforming it into something with a specific purpose that goes beyond the practical and visual uses mentioned so far. For example, consider transforming a loose piece of crown moulding into a mounted coat rack. Or you might use smaller pieces of trim to create an exterior window box for floral displays. Maybe you’ll turn some of your trim into an organizer of sorts, with hooks for clothing, umbrellas, tools, and a top shelf (compliments of crown molding) for other items. There’s really no limit to what you can construct with leftover trim, so feel free to express your creative impulses!

Don’t Underestimate the Power and Potential of Trim

There really is so much you can do with trim and crown moulding if you’re willing to put in the effort. Of course, a helping hand never hurts. At Nash Painting, we aim to be that helping hand for our clients across Nashville, Brentwood, and Franklin, TN. If you’re ready to elevate your home with new or renovated trim and crown moulding, we offer the expertise, resources, and services to help you achieve your vision. To learn more about us, our services, and our values, call us at 615-829-6858 today!